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Monday, January 19, 2015

Turquoise Stone Nail Art

Phew, I can't believe how quickly this new year is already going! Both work and graduate classes have been keeping me busy, but I managed to sneak in a little nail art. I decided to go for something a little more unusual (for me at least) and attempt something entirely new!

For the 2013 holiday season, I had gotten a nail art kit from Rainbow Honey. The kit contained some metallic leafing papers in gold, silver, and copper. I never really used them extensively, so I figured I would finally give it a shot. I also decided to try a new (new to me, at least) technique for the black lines in the turquoise.

I started off by painting all nails with China Glaze For Audrey
(my favorite China Glaze!). I then applied a little clear coat, and then
applied the copper leaf in random spots. I didn't really plan any
placement for these nails, as I wanted it to be more organic, like
natural turquoise stone. It ended up ripping and getting a little messy,
but it worked out for the turquoise look at least! After all, turquoise gets some of its color from idiochromatic copper!

After applying the copper, I then tried to do sort of a water marble, but just with black dots. I did this by dropping a few drops of Pure Ice Black Rage on the surface of a cup of water, and then sprayed it with a mist of liquid hand sanitizer. You may be able to achieve the desired circles using just water or rubbing alcohol, but I had this on my desk and thought I'd give it a try!

It ended up making lots of circles, which looked great on the water, but didn't transition as well as I had wanted. On the nail, the circles appear too small, and if I had used a large cup of water, they might have spread and gotten larger. Ah well, now I know better!

It's not entirely what I had in mind, but I still like it, and at least I know what I did wrong and what to improve for next time. I'll have to try more shades of blue and try to get larger circles for the black next time!